James Kirchick: ‘Can American Jews Be White Nationalists?’

I say yes because for many American Jews, their American identity is stronger than their Jewish identity. Also, for many Jews, their European genes outnumber their Middle Eastern genes. Also, many Jews are indistinguishable in appearance from whites. Many Jews identify more with the West than with Israel or Judaism. Many Jews understand that from an Arab and black perspective, the Jewish state of Israel is an outcrop of white supremacy in the midst of brown people. Many Jews and non-Jews see Zionism as a subset of white nationalism aka a distinct type of European nationalism.

James Kirchick writes for Zocalo:

American Jews, then, have something of a communal obligation to pay it forward by supporting a liberal immigration regime. And by and large we have: Jews and Jewish organizations are very pro-immigration. This implied social responsibility doesn’t necessarily entail support for open borders. Nor does it apply to other parts of the world; continued mass Muslim immigration from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe, for example, is a portentous development that will make Jewish life there, already difficult, increasingly so. But an American Jew calling for a drastic reduction in legal immigration to America is unseemly.

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* Kirchick has literally confirmed the MacDonald thesis.

If the sine non qua of a Jewish identity is supporting mass immigration…

* If Jews were not white they never would have been able to naturalize from the late 18th to the mid 19th century. The Naturalization Act of 1790, and several of its successors, limited naturalization to free whites of good character. European Jews were not prevented from naturalizing. I suppose an Ethiopian Jew would have. But I doubt any even tried.

* He’s against restricting immigration, except when it’s obviously bad for the Jews.

* So for Kirchick the immigration matter is simply contingent on what is good for his ethnic affiliates. I’m glad that he articulates this point so clearly.

* They are throwing absolutely everything they can at this Stephen Miller guy. He absolutely infuriates them! An apostate in a position of power! So many reasons to like him.

My favorite part of this angry screed is the recurring subtext that if the alt-right doesn’t stop making inconvenient noise about immigration, righteous republicans will quit the right wing. That’s really rich.

* The late Lawrence Auster, himself born Jewish, posed this rhetorical question to his co-ethnics: Would 19th century America have allowed masses of Jews to immigrate if it had known that the price of that was that those Jews would would oppose against any sensible immigration policy in the future?

* For Kirchick, Miller as a Jew is guilty of the ultimate sin: not being ethnocentric enough. Needless to say, we Gentiles need more “traitors” like Stephen Miller.

* Jews are in the same position as Republicans were in the 1990s to the mid-2000s. There is a powerful establishment with a certain set of ideas, and for the most part, the rank-and-file go along with it.

Like Ron Paul, or even earlier Pat Buchanan, Stephen Miller is one of the first iconoclasts to really start attracting attention.

While enmity with white Gentiles (antijaphetism) is not, on the whole, good for the Jews in America, it is very, very good for the Jewish establishment, which derives much of its power from making Jews feel they must be protected from the white Gentiles, and by allying with other groups that have resentment of whites in general. Anti-Jewish hate crimes means more Jews giving to the Anti-Defamation League, just as liberal atrocities once drove conservatives to the National Review, and maybe more support for the ADL from various Gentile grievance groups.

I think the same is likely true in Europe, to the extent that there are any Jewish elements in the European establishment.

If problems with Muslims become more and more publicized, I have a feeling that over the next decade or so, more and more Jews are going to start developing counter-establishment views on immigration, and we could get a full-scale revolt against, e.g., the ADL, the AJC, Commentary in the same way that we are now getting a revolt against the leadership of the Republican Party.

I think in general in the coming years there is going to be more of a revolt against all of the current elites in every institution, as they have all become too self-interested and stopped caring about those whom they are supposed to represent.

* The gist of this piece is “we jews can never be on your side, because we are jews”. I could not have put it better myself, although maybe not quite as explicit.

* An ethnocentric market-dominant minority will always have some interests different from those of their hosts. They will use their power to serve the interests of their small number of people at the expense of the far greater number of their hosts.

* …the best looking Jews are the Israelis and the Mid Eastern Jews. They’re not super smart like the Euro Ashkenazis, but they often look good. Especially the Israeli women, who are pretty and femme fatales. Israel these days has a very non-intellectual party culture that revolves around night clubs, late night eating establishments, and vanity. Israel is like the SoCal of the Middle East.

* This op-Ed is an important exemplar of a curious phenomenon: America is the only country in the world where Jews insist that they aren’t “white.” They find it safer to see themselves as another oppressed “person-of-color”, and for good reason. I guess that little ruse will work, for now, until the Left finds Jews less politically useful and discards them as “Uber-white”, the way the European Left has.

* Kirchick is fanatical about Jewish support for larger US immigration, but simultaneously thinks white nationalists are delusional for accusing Jews of conspiring to increase immigration. He’s refusing to connect the dots and acknowledge that a lot of Americans genuinely and passionately want restricted immigration and are correctly identifying him and other Jews as being political opponents.

* I think that Jews will be caught between two fires: Conservatives and Nationalists fed up with the aggressive hostility of many Jews towards the West, its peoples, cultures and Christianity, and the Left, who see them as “Uber-white.” Good guys such as Stephen Miller, Paul Gottfried and our host with the most Ron Unz will be caught inbetween, too.

* Paul Gottfried has commented on the parochialism of most American Jews hailing from Eastern Europe : it’s like their vision of what is Jewish is limited to their own particular fold. Thus Cossacks and Stormtroopers (i.e., White Christians) are the imminent threat to guard against. Muslims, once they touch the magical soil of America, become defanged, apparently.
The likes of Kirkchick don’t seem to have any great insight into why say, French Jews living in Marseille, whose parents fled Algeria in the 50s/60s in fear of Arabs exacting for their perceived loyalty to Mother France, are now stuck in French housing projects only to find the children of their Arab tormentors have followed them across the Med, and well, living among these people in Multi-culti France is a daily hell. Kirchick writes as if this could never happen in America, since if the browning of America would not necessarily be of an Islamic hue, US Jews need not fear. But Kirchick shows remarkable confidence that the People of Color/Coalition of the Fringers banner will not adopt the foreign policy mores of its Arab and Muslim component. Does he really want to do a poll among Guatemalans and find out which side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict they favor?

And as to this notion of Steve Miller being obligated to favor immigration because his gramps benefited from a liberal influx policy prior to 1924, Kirchick doesn’t follow his argument to its proper conclusion: it’s precisely because America is among the most PhiloSemitic countries that US Jews should not want to see the character of that country change. Miller seems to get the Marseille factor. For Kirchick, American exceptionalism will spare his descendents this scenario.

* He’s a patriot. Plenty of Jewish people favor reducing immigration. That doesn’t make them a white nationalist. Don’t most Jewish people favor reducing immigration?

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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